Karsa Orlong

Nah, you're the normal one, it's the others who are strange Thanks Kay!

If there's an author called Patrick O'Brien then it's probably already a pseudonym It sounds more like something GRRM would have in one of his books, though

The Walking Dead. Really hoping that Rick will start killing people soon (especially the boss woman)

It's a strange title, to be sure Patrick O'Brian's sense of humour at work, I suspect. Not as bad as this one, though

Nope, not at all

I've only just found out that it's Katherine Jenkins talking on this track :lol:

Yeah, I didn't like that bit at all - thought it was quite unnecessary and didn't bring anything to the story, tbh That apart, though, I loved the book just as much as the first, if not more. It had a better ending, I think. Glad you enjoyed it, great review as usual

Yay for the Tregillis! I might get to it some time this year

So you say So a bit like 2014 then?

I'm sure your review of Half a World is great, Laura, but I'm not going to read it until after I've read the book. If I read the book I did glance at the score, though, and thought 'Yep, saw that one coming'

I shouldn't imagine a laptop bought within the last five years or so would break a sweat with it - it's not graphics intensive at all (you can see the game running here). It's also very mod-able. I noticed that mine comes with community mods pre-installed, including a huge map pack. I've yet to see the same map twice The minimum specs are: Alternatively there's this Also, if you play XCOM: Enemy Within on pc, this sounds very intriguing.

The Nutmeg of Consolation (Aubrey/Maturin Book #14) by Patrick O'Brian 1991 - Harper ebook - 324 pages Note: This book begins immediately after the events of The Thirteen Gun Salute. Writing comments on these books is becoming increasingly problematic! Not only are all the blurbs I've looked at been full of spoilers for the previous book, but I am also conscious that I am inevitably saying the same things about each book. O'Brian's writing is wonderful blah blah, it's bursting with character blah blah blah, the action sequences are thrilling blah blah. Blah blah. This is undoubtedly a middle book in a sequence: it picks up directly from The Thirteen Gun Salute and leads inevitably into Clarissa Oakes. So it's impossible to give much detail. Suffice to say there are plenty of - ahem - Surprises (for those who don't know, Surprise is the name of Jack's ship - for Laura's benefit, it's a FRIGATE! ) and O'Brian genuinely never seems to take the story in the direction(s) I expect. And this particular story takes the crew back to Australia, to New South Wales and Botany Bay, and it is a quite horrific picture of it that O'Brian paints. Oh yeah, bullet points I mentioned somewhere up-thread that The Nutmeg of Consolation was one of the many titles belonging to a Sultan in the previous book. Well, here Jack uses it to name the ship which this particular story is about. I realised, as I was reading, that - although there are a lot of events - the story follows its own currents, ebbs and flows, and it became apparent to me that I was just enjoying spending time with these characters. Jack appears to be ill. I am very worried for him. Stephen is good with a sword! Two new characters are introduced, Sarah and Emily. I think I'm going to like them. Oh heck, I already like them O'Brian's ability to shock me with his endings shows no sign of letting up So yeah, it is fabulous. Again. Blah blah blah I highlighted so many passages in this one that it's tough to pick my favourite Memorable Quotes, so I'll limit myself to just this one, showing Stephen's consternation when he sees an Aborigine using a boomerang for the first time:

Thanks Sarah My jury service has been put back till the end of August, so it's not going to cause a holiday-related problem Well that's easy - Desolation Island! I'm definitely going to read Storm and Conquest at some point, too. I nearly bought it straight after finishing Commander, but I want to read some other books first

So I finished both Shadowrun games and was planning on going back to play XCOM: Enemy Within again when I saw that Xenonauts was on sale on Steam. I'd seen about it when it was in its Kickstarter phase and held off (the new XCOM seemed enough at the time), but it was hard to pass by for £9. So I bought it, and it is everything it promised to be, which is to be more like the original X-COM (hyphenated!) games, i.e. UFO Enemy Unknown and X-COM Terror from the Deep. And I'm addicted, completely. I lost most of the past two evenings and this afternoon to it. No flashy graphics or anything, just pure old school X-COM. It seems to be stopping me doing anything else, though

Okay, this video shows it better than my rubbish photos - should've found this in the first place

Steven Wilson's new album arrived today

I was going to post this in the music thread, but I suppose it does qualify as a book, too . . . My deluxe copy of Steven Wilson's new album, 'Hand. Cannot. Erase.' , arrived today. It's a big hardback, coffee table book that contains the album on cd, a cd of demos, and a dvd and blu-ray with surround sound versions and other bits and pieces. But the book itself - I've been looking through it and, as a presentation, I've never seen anything quite like it. Here's the cover: Then, inside, there are all sorts of bits and pieces, like a birth certificate, a book of stories written by a child, and an envelope which contains a handwritten note (which are actually lyrics to one of the songs). There are other things in there that I haven't even looked at yet. It's quite beautiful (and the music is stunning - just as well really!)

Seems appropriate, given the noise outside

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say they were miming Also, I never realised that James Milner was in The Animals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0G1Ucw5HDg

Have had to put my iPod on to block out the drilling noise . . .

Good grief What will you do? Get your money back and order it elsewhere?

Currently listening to a pneumatic drill, right outside the office, which has been going since about 8:30 this morning Hope it's not going to be going all day, else I might go slightly mad(der)